Punitive toll fees will lead to congestion in Lusaka as people move back

A Kafue Resident William Chilufya has written to Infrastructure Development and Housing Minister Ronald Chitotela over the recently introduced toll fees on Kafue road.

Mr. Chilufya said in a letter copied to Minister of Finance, Kafue MP, the National Road Fund Agency Chief Executive Officer and the Attorney General that the slight reduction in the toll gate fees from K40 to K30 round trip for small vehicles as reported in the media is still exorbitantly high.

He said the K10 round trip reduction for small vehicles, resulting in a fee of K30 round trip, is still too burdensome for the thousands of people who commute from outside of Lusaka each day.

Mr Chilufya warned that those who travel in their own vehicles to Lusaka each day for employment will see travel costs increase to K450 per month and that bus fares are likely to go up as the bus operators factor in toll gate fees come January 2017.

“Sir, your proposed toll gate fees remain disturbingly high and will quickly become a source of economic strife among the people of Kafue and other surrounding areas. Honourable Minister, there is more that can be done to help cushion the sufferings of the Kafue residents, who voluntarily have chosen to decongest Lusaka and settle in the outskirts, but already face high transport costs. Implementation of high tolls effectively incentivizes people to move back to Lusaka, increasing congestion in Lusaka,” Mr Chilufya wrote.

“Honourable, your local user classification of 10-kilometer radius of a toll gate facility, seems to be unfair to those who have elected to live outside Lusaka, and calls us to put our heads together to figure out the best description of a ‘local user’.”

He added, “While I support the initiative of road tolling, and am supportive of paying toll fees, I look to you to implement an amount that will not rob my family of the little hard earned resources which are earned via our daily employment-related commute into Lusaka. My colleagues and I worried about these punitive toll fees will be happy to meet you and your team to brainstorm on this important issue.”

33 COMMENTS

I really support this appeal. In countries where toll fees are charged, it is the private secotr that collects so that they are responsible for road maintenance. But in our situation, I am not so sure where the fees collected go; whether in the general government treasury or they have a special vault so that they are pumped back into road repair and maintenance. One would suspect that the toll fees have been increased as a result of government being so desperate to find sources of revenue to finance government programmes, among them, the president’s useless trips outside the country.

You same people condemn when LCC subcontract a company for collecting parking fees. here you support subcontracting tolls. What do you people want? The govt has already stated that it will very soon introduce management of road maintenance through PPP and that is what you are talking about. I know when that comes up, you will condemn.
Aaagh!

Chagwas trips have increased so Government needs more cash for his Jet fuel’ & parking fees abroad.
There U go!!
Thats why toll fees are important, as remember the coffers were depleated by P.F campaigns, bribes, & more money in politicians pockets.

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I Thought the fees were reduced to K10 for those within 10kms of the Toll Gate. Kanshi its reducing by K10 only. That’s ridiculous. There is another concept with these Toll Fees issue. Charge people for the usage of the section of the road per kilometer traveled just. Pro-rata your fee and deduce it based on the kms on that section of the tolled road and determine the fee payable per km. Then you aggregate how much each section of the residents along and around your toll will eventually be paying. Uniform charging is unfair and ridiculous to say the least.

The toll gate being built at Shimabala is just the same as building one between Chilanga and Lusaka. I feel that the location of current temporal toll gate at Kafue Bridge was the ideal place where the permanent gate should be. Lusaka, Chilanga and Kafue towns are almost becoming one City now because of the much construction going on.

Toll gates are now cash cow of PF government. They have no other means of generating revenues apart from this exercise.
And the money collected from this exercise will never go to road maintenance. The money will be going to there agenda such bye- election , presidential trips etc.

The Toll gate for Kafue should be after the bridge where the temporal one is. That way Kafue residents will be exempted. The One for Chongwe must be after Chongwe town. Why punish citizens kanshi? already there are no jobs in Kafue nd chongwe and these pipo depend on Lusaka for jobs. Put one also before state house kanshi.. awe mwatupesha mwe!!!!

Just pay and demand for better road services. It works worldwide so what’s wrong with some people like this author? Everything you want to be free, where do you think development funds will come from? Cheap politicking has retarded our country and should not be intertwined!

Everybody wants development but the problem in this country is that the so called development will only be appreciated by the privileged few. Why don’t we consult other countries on what is obtaining in their countries regarding the same toll gates, especially on daily commuters?

Everything is bad in Zambia. I blame successive governments for spoon feeding us on nearly everything. In some countries toll gate fees are as high as 150 dollars but us are busy complaining with k30…! Come on..fellow citizens, lets get to work and stop complaining…!

I am also shocked
that someone can complain about a toll fee of K30 when it is more than 10 times that in some countries! The problem with Zambians is that they never want to pay for any service. At my block of flats, we reduced the monthly subscription for common services by more than 50 percent because that’s what the tenants demanded. When we acceded to their demand, the same tenants protested that it was too high! The government should reject these demands with the contempt they deserve.

For citizens who live on less than a dollar per day, K30 is too much. If you didn’t know, please do some research of your own. Poverty levels have become unbearable for the common man. People are suffering. Their own doing? Maybe but you should know that K30 maybe the difference between life and death for any person whether they voted P.F or not because of certain economic policies that are squeezing everyone out there. We are all caught up in this net.

50 plus years after independence (so-called I might add) and you cannot even come up with a coherent commuter train system!? That would have gone a way to mitigate some of that non.sense. Now all you do is complain about driving your cars that are afforded without thought to running costs and auxiliary fees!!! Add to that a government that thinks there is progress in creating some Ministry for National Guidance (what the heck?) and Tooth Fairy affairs!

building without planning has resulted in all this. where will they lay the railway line? that can worsen the situation because it has to criss- cross some road network. unless you elevate the rail system like in Japan or USA but that will be too expensive for your poor zambia.

I work in Lusaka while my husband and kids are based in Ndola. I drive minimum twice per month to Ndola to be with the family. This implies toll fees of ZMW80 to ZMW 160 plus fuel expense of ZMW 1500 to ZMW 2000 every month.
Life in Zambia has become too expensive for ordinary people!
The Kafue and Chongwe toll gates are going to adversely affect the disposal income of residents of Kafue and Chongwe who work in Lusaka. There is need to consider introduction of residence passes which the NRFA can administer through ZP or the local Civic authority. These can then be presented by residents instead of paying toll fees on a daily basis.

When people told this government to stop borrowing recklessly, they chose to give a blind eye to the advise. All they could say is “sonta”. Can you now sonta where you have taken all those monies if not misappropriated through corrupt activities. While you are desperately looking for alternative sources of income to fund your budget, stop punishing the ordinary. It’s not just people who drive but cost of goods and services will go up, affecting even you the of caders. All we ask it reduce to K5.00

Surely there must be some concessions for daily commuters and this has been successfully done in other countries. The major problem in Zambian is that the toll roads don’t have alternative road. A toll road is supposed to be your Highway sort of fast high standard class road with less disruptions. You then provide an alternative road, which of a less standard and with some interruptions e.g 4 way stops, robots etc. I wonder if these current toll roads can stand constitutional obligations if they where challenged in courts.

It is unreasonable for people to complain about toll-gates of K 30 only.I landed in cape town and within the vicinity of the Airport are two toll gates at slightly expensive side.That is how they maintain roads.Compare your road from the Solwezi Airstrip, yaba it is like from the graveyard.

Do u know how many alternatives are there in Cape Town to the City Center or any other place. Please do not expose your ignorance, some of us have driven in Cape Town a lot. U want to use the Highway u pay, but there a lot of alternatives.

Please educate me: Has government made plans to make alternative roads for citizens not wishing to use Tolled Roads? Tolled roads are meant to be the best roads, saving you time and money because they are well maintained and direct.That is how it is normally done, all over the world. Here is South Africa the Government made a mistake of Tolling The Ring Highway around Johannesburg and the N1 to Pretoria.They are currently owed billions of Rands because, apart from government vehicles and Fleet owners and a few other motorists, 95% of the citizens are not paying these toll fees.This also made the ruling ANC to lose governance of Johannesburg and Pretoria to the opposition parties at the last Local Government Elections.

@Questioner. This is foo;oshness of the Tonga people. YOU start very well with every ones support only to come and trivialize the matter like a cadre who does not understand any thing. There is no President who does not travel even HH if he comes to power if he will he will ever will be travelling for him to bring development.